


Whisper What You Want to Hear

by elegantanagram (Lir)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bonding, Canon Compliant, Developing Relationship, F/M, Friendship, Loneliness, Open to Interpretation, POV Third Person, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Red Romance, Wordcount: 100-2.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 20:24:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1562900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lir/pseuds/elegantanagram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cronus might be in the business to set up his own blabbing booth. Aranea can tell him it's not all it's cracked up to be. When it comes down to it, they're both too interested in speaking for anyone to pay for the pleasure of being a listening ear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whisper What You Want to Hear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EternallyEphemeral](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EternallyEphemeral/gifts).



> I saw the prompt for these two bonding over being ignored and avoided because of how they both crave attention, and I just really wanted to run with that. I would have liked to work in Aranea knowing what others think of her because of being an empath as well, but alas, that part was not to be.

-

He comes up to Aranea's exposition booth, moving with a slouching stride like he hasn't got anywhere important to be. When he leans against one of the booth's support posts, it's with an entirely too-practiced air of unconcern. He reaches behind one of his fins and pulls free his battered cigarette, puts it between his lips to tongue at the already-soggy filter.

Aranea eyes him with distaste, lacing her fingers before her on the wood and forcing herself to wait. He's not her first choice in company, but she covers that up well.

"What kind of a racket do you have going here?" he asks her, after a minute of mouthing his cigarette and playing it cool. "With all the cats coming through here lately, I guess it might be profitable."

She bites her tongue.

It's not profitable – quite the opposite – but it's not entirely necessary that she tell him, of all people, that she's the one paying for the privilege to speak. There are too many words simmering under her skin, too many thoughts in her head that none of her friends care to pause and take heed of. For the price of a few boondollars, she can buy herself an audience, at least for a minute or two.

"It's an exposition booth," is what she says. "Though the amount of money changing hands may be quite a bit less than what you would think."

"That's a shame," Cronus says. "I was thinking this might be just the hip thing for me to try out. I've got a lot of things of my own I could expound on. I could put mine to music, too."

"I doubt you'll be bringing in big business," Aranea warns. She doesn't mean to sound bitter, but she can taste the flavor of it on her tongue, a sourness to the words that almost makes her wish she hadn't been invited to offer them up in the first place.

"It's not booming, huh," Cronus guesses.

It's not a question, not really. He's still slouching against her support post, but he turns more fully toward her, and his expression is unexpectedly arch. He knows that no one pays her, she can tell.

"It's rather the other way around," she admits. "In fact, I could pay you five boondollars, and in exchange for my benevolence, you would only need to stand and listen as I enumerate the commercial failings of a business where the business owner is the one to pay out for the service."

"You wouldn't have to pay me, Serks."

She thinks he's picked up the name from Meenah, and she might ordinarily have reprimanded him for it. But she doesn't, even when he leans his palm against the booth, flashes her that eager-puppy smile she's sure he thinks is just so suave. He crowds in front of the booth, like her services are something worth monopolizing.

"Is there something you'd like me to discourse about?" she asks.

"Nah," he admits. "I can't say there is particularly. But maybe for a buck or two, you'd let a guy unload some of his problems?"

"That's not really the purpose of the booth," she says.

"But it'd be more lucrative, wouldn't it?" he coaxes.

He has her there, well and truly. Profit never was the purpose, though his proposition sounds more friendly than paying Meenah for her listening ear ever was. His hand wedges in his back pocket, pulling out a coin to flip between his fingers, the five pressed into its surface clearly visible as he rolls it over his knuckles.

When he looks up from his trick to focus on her face, his fins give that hopeful little seatroll wiggle.

"One transaction will buy you leeway to talk about one problem," she decides, reaching out and plucking the coin from his fingers. "Don't go overboard."

"Well see," he begins, letting her take his money without argument. "There's this real class-act dame I might have had my eye on, but I haven't been able to figure out how to get her to listen to me, so I can find out if maybe she's interested, too."

Aranea tosses him his coin back, quick enough that he barely manages to catch it between his palms.

"That's for the exposition," she says. "I wouldn't want you not to feel compensated for your listening services. I believe if you have your eye on a particular girl, you would be best served by directness. When your overtures are either overly pushy, or unclear, it doesn't give the best impression."

He slaps the coin down on the booth, and pushes it back toward her once again.

"I have this problem where nobody wants to listen to the things I've got to say," he says. "I thought maybe you would have some kind of feeling about that but chances are, I might've been wrong."

The coin gleams up at her, when Cronus takes his fingers off of it. Aranea watches him, with his fins fluttering slightly and his mouth forgetting for the moment to grin its smarmy grin. She catches the coin with her clawtips, and pushes it again across the booth's surface to his side.

She thinks she might be catching the bigger picture here, for all that it has done its best to elude her.

"No one listens to the things I say," she confides, voice bright like it's just ordinary conversation. "Which is a shame, because I have so many fascinating stories to tell. I could tell you all about our alternate selves, or about the world of Beforus, back through distant history. I could tell you which lusii commonly make the worst custodians, or I could tell you why pirates favor pieces of eight. But I doubt that's anything you want to listen to, either."

His hand is on the booth, and as they both look down at the coin between them, Aranea realizes they've fallen into taking turns.

"I could be persuaded to listen. Maybe," he says. "It's not like I've really got anything better to do."

He's still not the company she wanted, not precisely. He still puts on that oil-slick smile when he wants to impress, still waggles his eyebrows too hard and still has a reputation for coming on too strong. But he's making the offer, and he's still an audience, however faulted.

"I could perhaps offer you assistance with your problems," she returns. "At least insofar as a listening ear is concerned."

The grin she gets for that isn't even smarmy, coupled with a happy-listening flare of fins that she could get used to. The unfamiliar thoroughness of his attentiveness warms her up inside.

He's hardly the best audience, but he hangs on her every word, as he waits for his turn.

-

-


End file.
